Daniel Knowles writes for the Economist about politics and economics and is @dlknowles on Twitter.

End-of-year PMQs: the playground bully crushes Ed Miliband

The final PMQs of the year, and Parliament was in an end-of-term mood. Nick Clegg arrived grinning like a bullied child before a holiday, to the cheers of his small band of allies. No longer the victim, he sat next to the chief bully, Mr Cameron, both ready to turn on the poor child opposite: Ed Miliband. You could tell it would be a brutal session and it was. Dave squashed Ed to a pulp.

But not straight away. Once a month, on a Wednesday morning, the Office for National Statistics publishes the latest unemployment figures, giving Ed Miliband the perfect ammunition. "The figures show his economic strategy is failing," he said. His point was that a year ago, the Prime Minister said that private job creation would "significantly outpace" losses in the public sector; as it is, only one private sector job is being created for every thirteen public sector ones lost. Mr Cameron made a gamely effort to reply, but when he spluttered "we won't take lectures", you thought Ed might just stand a chance.

He didn't of course – as soon as Ed turned to Europe, he'd lost. The Government is split, said Ed. "He shouldn't believe everything he reads in the papers. It's not that bad," said Cameron. "It's not like we're brothers or anything." That was probably the PM's best joke of the year – simple but effective. Miliband tried to reply with a joke ("Our sympathy is with the Deputy PM. His partner goes on a business trip and he hears nothing until a rambling phone call at 4am admitting a dreadful mistake") but it just wasn't very funny. And again, he was knocked down when David Cameron pointed out his own confusion – would he have used the veto or not?

Before moving onto other MPs' questions, Dave concluded with this: "Every single one of [Ed's] MPs has asked Santa for a new leader for Christmas." Based on today's performance, I wouldn't be surprised if he's right. Over the last few months, David Miliband has proven himself adept at hitting the Government with short, incisive questions which expose where they are wrong. Ed Miliband does no such thing – he waffles and makes bad jokes. As long as Ed is leader, David Cameron will control the playground. No one likes a bully, but it takes a lot more than this to beat one.